MACRA

At a pivotal moment for healthcare, it's time to reform regulatory approaches, improve access to data for care coordination and establish a national patient ID, says John Halamka, MD, who offers some perspective to CMS and ONC on the future of MACRA, interoperability and more.

The countdown to HISS17 continues. As I wrote last week, the best way to think about it is in three ways – education, vendors, and networking. This post is the second in a three-part series – focusing on vendors.

John Halamka, MD, served the Bush administration for four years and the Obama administration for six. Change in Washington happens incrementally, he says: There is always an evolution, not a revolution, regardless of speechmaking hyperbole.

"Sometimes when you remodel a house, there is a point when additional improvements are impossible and you need to start again with a new structure," writes Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CIO John Halamka, MD, about a 962-page rule that "no mere human will be able to understand."

Starting in 2019, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will change how they pay physicians in a profound way. Unfortunately, the details are complicated and confusing, and many of the particulars have yet to be worked out, which has led many healthcare leaders to glaze over the details and focus on more immediate concerns.